Unreal Tournament Now Chilling On Monastery Map

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These days, Epic Games are known more for their Unreal Engine than the games which game the tech its name. Up go the cries of “The youth of today…!” and “High school computing students should know the name Steven Polge!” and “Get off my lawn!” and “I’m sorry, I just… how did my life become this?” and “Why? I… why this? Why me?” etc.

While it seems unlikely Epic will make another Unreal game again, they are making a new Unreal Tournament [official site], the multiplayer spin-off series. Delightfully, the FPS is entirely free and Epic release work-in-progress builds regularly. Why, only yesterday they released one with a new map all finished and fancied-up!

DM-Chill isn’t a new-new map but, as per Epic’s open development method, before it was a prototype to test the layout, without the fancy sheen of a polished level. Now the monastery has all the bells, whistles, and icicles you’d expect. Here, have a look:

I always argued for on id Software’s side in ye olde pointlesse ‘Quake vs. UT’ arguments and, dear reader, I must confess some residual hang-up from this means I still haven’t tried this new Unreal Tournament at all. Mistakes from our youth certainly do follow us – that’s the line I yell in the parade of codgers with strong opinions about ’90s FPSs.

I was a UT player, though not a particularly good one. Generally competent enough to do well in random DM servers, and be no worse than a mild hindrance to my UT clan*.

That was the best part of twenty years ago, and in the meantime I’m reasonably sure that my reflexes, aim, tactical decision-making and spatial awareness have all withered to the point of uselessness. I’ll probably try this at some point but I will expect to be utterly crushed.

On the plus side, I care a lot less about losing than I used to, which is no doubt just as well.

* On one memorable occasion, I nobly assisted my clan in a close-fought TDM by staying dead in the final seconds, instead of respawning to get killed again and gift the opposing team a crucial point. I like to think of it as heroic cowardice.

Hmmm. I could use some multiplayer shooter in my life. Haven’t done any of that since Halo: Reach.

It seems so weird to me that the same people who made Jazz Jackrabbit make Unreal. And Gears of War. Why don’t they use that fancy 3D tech to make that Jazz Jackrabbit 3 they were working on that one time?

Keeping an eye on this. The original UT is a massive game in my youth – these days I pretty much play grand strategy, RPGs & Football Manager exclusively but this pulls at parts of my heart that have been cold for years.

Oh and in the interest of old codger FPS wars: Quake was better than Quake II.

I’ll probably try the new UT some time in the future, but I was always on the Quake side of things, too…

It’s funny that Rocket League – which is absolutely not a shooter – has given me the excitement of a Quake match for the first time in years without the need to have the godlike aim that no 30-something year old with a job and a fiancée can maintain. Rocket League has essentially become what Quake 3 was for many years.